Underwear 4 Kindergarten
​Program

Underwear 4 Kindergarten is an early potty training program for parents who want to give their kids with Down syndrome the opportunity to learn to use the toilet before behaviors can get in the way.
Starting at 18 months, this direct teaching method has proven successful for nearly 90% of students who attend Little Leaf Learning Center where the system was designed.   The goal of the program  is to have 9 out of 10 kids with Down syndrome going to school wearing underwear with many of them potty trained by age 3 or 4. Kids with Down syndrome deserve a chance to learn this skill at the same time as their peers. Young children with Down syndrome are proving they can potty train well before they gain the skills most experts believe are required for them to have before they even start trying.

YouTube Channels

To help with understanding the new mindset of the Underwear 4 Kindergarten process, and to support the information in the Guidebook, we have a YouTube channel with additional videos.  Here are a few of our favorites: ​​
Little Leaf is a non-profit organization providing intense quality early interventions for infants, toddlers, and young children with Down syndrome. We are a team of educators and therapists with expertise in education, social skills, behavioral, fine motor, speech, and feeding for children with Down syndrome. Our passion is helping children with Down syndrome flourish. With our expertise, your child's hard work, and your support, your child will flourish and grow!
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Little Leaf Down Syndrome Early Intervention, Therapy, and Education Center for children with Down syndrome. We are a team of educators, speech-language therapists, and occupational therapists specializing in children with Ds early development. We bring our expertise to your little one through educational videos for you and your child. Bring us into your home to teach sign, make sounds in isolation, blend sounds, talk, read, and write letters to your child. How to use our channel? There are parent instructions in the description of all our videos. You don't know where to start. We can help you know where to start by taking this survey. How do I stay on your YouTube channel? I recommend copying and past the videos/playlists assigned to your child in a doc. Use the doc. for your child's lessons. We can make a personalized playlist for you. Email us at [email protected] put YouTube in the subject line to help us respond to your email quicker.
Program
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At our program we start potty training kids with Down syndrome at age 18 months.  If a child is older than 18 months when they join our program, we begin introducing the potty right away.
Desensitizing
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To start with every child needs to be introduced to the tools they will use to learn how to eliminate in a toilet.  That could be a potty chair, toilet paper, washing hands, or books/iPad used to help them sit for longer periods of time.  These introductions can be short and build up to longer durations.  
Direct Teaching
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Kids with Down syndrome benefit from direct teaching and deserve to be taught this skill at a similar age as their typically developing peers.  Coaching kids to relax and go more, helping build balance as they stand to have pants go up and down, and giving them the tools to communicate needs even if they don't yet have the words to communicate verbally all help our students to be successful much earlier.